Dishnetwork Buys Voom

[swgiust]

Driving home last night I heard on the radio that the board of Cablecom has agreed
to sell VOOM to Echostar (Dishnetwork). This is awesome news for all us HDTV owners.
VOOM was a great concept. But it never fully carried enough non HD tv to make it a
success. Dishnetwork on the other hand, carries plenty of channels and has local
channels. You mix the two and you've got about the best choice in any type of service.
I can see 150 regular channels and 40 or so HD channels when they are merged.

[swgiust]

Dishnetwork Buys Voom

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Driving home last night I heard on the radio that the board of Cablecom has agreed
to sell VOOM to Echostar (Dishnetwork). This is awesome news for all us HDTV owners.
VOOM was a great concept. But it never fully carried enough non HD tv to make it a
success. Dishnetwork on the other hand, carries plenty of channels and has local
channels. You mix the two and you've got about the best choice in any type of service.
I can see 150 regular channels and 40 or so HD channels when they are merged.

[gonefishin]

very good news!
:D

[spuppy517]

Of course I have Direct tv right?? Ugh. Anyway. Any word on when dish network owners might see the benefit of this merge??

[mattldm]

Dont give up on Directv yet, they are launching 2 new satellites this year, and 2 more in 2007. these will be able to bring in over 1500 HD and 150 Local HD stations accross the country. ( this is from a press release that I saw)

[Woochifer]

Wow, the deal actually went through. That's a much needed preemptive strike by Dish, because Directv by the middle of next year was poised to gain a huge advantage over Dish Network in its HD offerings, with two planned satellite launches. Voom was too far ahead of the market to survive on its own -- simply not enough HDTV owners out there to support a standalone HD satellite service. They've been losing money hand over fist since the network went live, and no surprise they've been trying to find a buyer for the past few months. A quality service with very happy customers, just not enough of them (I think their subscriber base is less than 30,000). Dish was the most logical buyer since Directv already announced their own HD expansion plans.

Dish taking over Voom's infrastructure and satellite capacity lets them expand their HD offerings a lot sooner than Directv. If they can start offering local channels in HD and significantly expand their HD channel offerings sometime this year, then they'll have a huge leg up on Directv, which won't have that capability until at least the middle of next year.

[mattldm]

from what I read Directv should have the ability to upgrade their HD lineup by this fall. The two new satellites are set to launch "early in 2005". This should give them the ability to add much more HD content in 2005. They wont however be up to full capacity until the second 2 launch in 2007.

What do you think they will offer first in 2005, more HD only networks, or local stations in HD?

[Woochifer]

from what I read Directv should have the ability to upgrade their HD lineup by this fall. The two new satellites are set to launch "early in 2005". This should give them the ability to add much more HD content in 2005. They wont however be up to full capacity until the second 2 launch in 2007.

What do you think they will offer first in 2005, more HD only networks, or local stations in HD?

Doubt that Directv would roll out the local channels first. They can only rebroadcast local channels into that particular market, so it would make more sense for them to add channels that they can offer to all their subscribers. They might do what they did before they offered local OTA channels, which is offer national feeds for the broadcast networks. They already offer the national feeds for the broadcast networks like ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox. But, I'm not sure if they can offer those channels to everybody, given all the legal crap that's gone back and forth over the issue of satellite rebroadcasts of OTA signals. It took Directv over two years to offer regular OTA broadcast channels to most of the country (they started with the largest markets, and progressively added on from there).

[mattldm]

that makes sense, but the satellite companies are already lagging behind cable companies when it comes to local HD delivery. My local cable company offers all the local stations in HD, (So. Cal, LA area) and the satellite companies dont want to let them get too far ahead. For my money, they can keep all the HD only special networks, and offer the local stations in HD, If they did that I would sign up tomorrow!

[Woochifer]

that makes sense, but the satellite companies are already lagging behind cable companies when it comes to local HD delivery. My local cable company offers all the local stations in HD, (So. Cal, LA area) and the satellite companies dont want to let them get too far ahead. For my money, they can keep all the HD only special networks, and offer the local stations in HD, If they did that I would sign up tomorrow!

I'm pretty sure that Directv and Dish are already aware of that.

Satellite companies at the moment are hampered by limited capacity to deliver HD signals. For cable companies, it's an easier transition because those systems that have gone digital already have enough bandwidth to add HD signals. Launching a satellite takes time, and has to be scheduled years in advance. That's the only thing that's holding Directv and Dish back right now.

Plus, I don't think that it will make much of a bottomline difference until more households get HDTVs. I don't have any figures, but I would guess that less than 10% of cable customers currently subscribe to HD services. Nationally, the market penetration of HDTV is about 10%, and a lot of those customers use aerial antennas to receive the HD signals or don't even view HD at all. So, right now it's probably not a critical time for either Dish or Directv to offer the local HD channels. In two years, the market penetration of HDTV will probably be a lot more significant, and by then, both satellite services will have the satellite capacity in place to really expand their HD offerings.

Keep in mind that Directv and Dish only started offering local channels on their systems about four years ago, and it took more than two years for them to roll out the local channel service to cover most of the U.S. media markets.

[eqm]

...I watch the regular satellite mostly, with football being a LOT better to watch on my antenna through the onboard HD tuner in my Mits Diamond. Right now I'm using a Hughes Tivo for the bulk of my watching and simply waiting for the HD Tivo to A: be closer in price to $300.00 from the current $1000.00, and waiting for a Tivo which has an IEEE1394 firewire connection. That, and the lack of HD programming on the channels I watch regularly are the only things keeping me from HD through satellite right now.

Once you go Tivo....you never want to go back. :D

[mattldm]

I know that it takes time to launch satellites, but I just wish they would hurry up! :)
I just hope that when Directv launches its new satellites this year that they put their focus into offering local HD stations, as opposed to more HD networks that show old movies, documentaries, etc. I think this is why Voom was unable to capture more of the market, most of their HD stations were a little off center.

[Woochifer]

I know that it takes time to launch satellites, but I just wish they would hurry up! :)
I just hope that when Directv launches its new satellites this year that they put their focus into offering local HD stations, as opposed to more HD networks that show old movies, documentaries, etc. I think this is why Voom was unable to capture more of the market, most of their HD stations were a little off center.

Well, I actually think that Voom was just a good idea that arrived two years before the market was ready. They obviously did not have the cash reserves to seed the market for another two years before the number of HD-ready sets could provide a large enough customer base to support such a costly operation. If they could hold out, they were in a good position to trump both Directv and Dish at every step by rolling out HD programming before anyone else could. But, they just did not have enough customers (or potential customers for that matter) to support themselves in the meantime.

The problem with local broadcast channels is that not all of them are HD resolution. That will vary from market to market, as does the current availability of HD signals. The FCC is trying to phase out analog broadcast bandwidth, and the only requirement that they have for TV stations is to broadcast digital signals. Those digital signals do not have to have HD resolution. For example, in SoCal I believe the digital broadcast for KCOP/UPN 13 is not HD (I know this because Star Trek fans complain all the time about UPN13's broadcasts of Enterprise, which is available in HD, but not televised in HD on that station).

Directv and Dish have already begun carrying national HD feeds for ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox. But, I'm not sure about the specifics because there are a lot of shifting legalities about which customers can receive national network feeds (they might be able to offer the service only if a customer cannot pick up the local affiliate using an aerial antenna). Before Directv and Dish offered local stations as part of their programming package, they had national network feeds available on their system (which got tied up in legal limbo for a couple of years, while everyone had to work out arrangements over how satellite services could rebroadcast local channels).

Another issue is that there's a lot of programming that has not gone HD. You have channels like HDNet and HDMovies because a lot of the more popular cable channels like MTV, E!, A&E, TNT, USA, and CNN have not gone HD yet. Once you start getting HD feeds available for those channels, and the number of HDTVs grows more, then I think the adaption of HD on Directv and Dish will ramp up very quickly.

[mattldm]

I know what you mean. My wife and I watch a lot of HGTV, Foodtv, Bravo, and networks like that, which are not brodcast as HD. I am mostly interested in the available sports programming in HD that is on the "big 3" Monday night football, golf, baseball, etc.

I think im just a little ahead of the curve by expecting this to happen so soon. I know it will be a while before all the legal bugs are worked out.